Mary had released Gardiner from the Tower, and made him her trusted
Minister. His advice in all matters, save that of her marriage,
coincided with the Emperor's. It was thought that small difficulty would
be found in restoring the Roman Catholic religion, but that difficulties
might arise about the papal supremacy, and especially about the
reception of a papal Legate. Much depended on the Pope. If His Holiness
did not demand the restoration of the ecclesiastical property alienated
during the last two reigns, and now distributed among over forty
thousand proprietors, all might go well.
Signs were not wanting, however, that if the people were almost
unanimous in accepting Mary as their Queen, they were not united upon
religion. When Dr. Gilbert Bourne, preaching at St. Paul's Cross (Aug.
13th, 1553) praised Bishop Bonner, he was interrupted by shouts; a
dagger was thrown at him; he was hustled out of the pulpit, and his life
was threatened. The tumult was only appeased when Bradford, a known
Protestant, appealed to the crowd. The Lord Mayor of London was
authorised to declare to the people that it was not the Queen's
intention to constrain men's consciences, and that she meant to trust
solely to persuasion to bring them to the true faith.
Five days later (August 18th), Mary issued her first _Proclamation about
Religion_, in which she advised her subjects "to live together in quiet
sort and Christian charity, leaving those new-found devilish terms of
papist or heretic and such like." She declared that she meant to support
that religion which she had always professed; but she promised "that she
would not compel any of her subjects thereunto, _unto such time as
further order, by common assent, may be taken therein_"--a somewhat
significant threat. The proclamation prohibited unlicensed preaching and
printing "any book, matter, ballad, rhyme, interlude, process, or
treatise, or to play any interlude, except they have Her Grace's special
licence in writing for the same," which makes it plain that from the
outset Mary did not intend that any Protestant literature should be read
by her subjects if she could help it.[496]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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